Consumer Adoption of Fast-Fashion, Differences of Perceptions, and the Role of Motivations Across the Adoption Groups

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the adoption groups of the fast-fashion consumers, evaluate the consumers' perceptions of the fast-fashion in different groups, and model the role of "social or status image", "uniqueness", and "conformity"on the level of fast-fashion consumer adoption. The consumer adoption groups were determined as "innovators", "early adopters", "early majority", "late majority", and "laggards"by using a domain-specific innovativeness (DSI) scale. Consumers' perceptions of fast-fashion were evaluated from cognitive and emotional aspects and the differences across the consumer groups were investigated by using Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney U test. The roles of "social or status image", "uniqueness", and "conformity"on consumer groups were modeled by using ordinal logistic regression analysis. As a result of the research, consumers' perceptions of fast-fashion were found to vary across different consumer adoption groups in terms of "being in-style products", "expressing self-image", "imitating the luxury fashion products", and "frequent renewal of the collections". Further, the findings revealed that the probabilistic relationship between different levels of consumer adoption based on innovativeness could be modeled based on the motivations of "social or status image"and "uniqueness".